CHANGING FACE OF WILLS

THE TESTAMENT CAN NOW BE TAILORED TO ACCOMMODATE CHANGING SOCIAL REALITIES AND PROVIDE FOR SAME-SEX PARTNERS, ADOPTED CHILDREN, PETS, AS WELL AS FOR ORGAN DONATION OR CHARITY

- By Sonal Khetarpal

As he approached 50, and thoughts of mortality began to surface for Pune-based IT professional Siddhesh Bhobe, one worry kept nagging at him, something others might find unusual. “What if the three of us—my wife, daughter and I—die in an accident? What will happen to our cats?” A devoted ailurophile, Bhobe is a proud parent to 18 felines. Unable to shake the anxiety, he eventually drafted a will—a legal document that specifies how a person’s assets and properties must be distributed after their death—to ensure his cats would be cared for if something happened to the family.

As social relationships become more complex, with rising numbers of single people, DINK (double income, no kids) households, live-in and same sex couples, adopted children and children born outside of marriage, many individuals are taking recourse to writing wills to ensure their legacies reflect these evolving realities.

Indians are not known to be enthusiastic about writing wills. Though there is no comprehensive data on how many Indians have one, a 2022 survey of 700-plus people by online will-making platform Yellow found that only five per cent had actually made a will; another 10 per cent had prepared a rough draft. This is in sharp contrast to the US, where 40-45 per cent of people have a will in place.